Using the cloud can bring advantages that could be extra enticing for a small business. Instead of having to invest in hardware to store your files and applications, why not use the cloud? Instead of emailing documents back and forth, why not centrally store them in the cloud?

Additional plans: Small business plan is $5/user/month or $60 annually for up to 25 users.

Small business premium is $12.5/user/month or $150 annually

Mid-size is $15/user/month

Enterprise plans for Office 365 range from $4/user/month to $22/user/month

Features: More expensive plans come with features such as Active Directory integration, Office mobile for iPhone and Android devices, archiving, legal holds and unlimited storage, hosted voicemail or Lync Server. All plans offer integration with Microsoft Office tools such as Word and Powerpoint

Additional plans: The company offers literally dozens of services from compute instance types to storage tiers, databases and the largest third-party marketplace of services that have been certified to run on AWS’s cloud.

Features: Amazon Web Services is considered by many the market-leading IaaS public cloud because of its breadth and depth of cloud-based service offerings.

Additional plans: Personal plan is $12.95/month with unlimited storage. For $29.95/month customers get unlimited storage with the ability to custom brand the storage offering, so it’s meant to be a white label offering. Starting at $5/month users can specify the amount of cloud storage they need.

Features: Although not associated with a major brand-name company, OpenDrive has solid reviews. Its customer branding offers allow companies to white label its service as a free cloud storage services for their customers.

Features: All versions have 256-bit AES encryption. Business plans have unlimited file recovery, version history, and business management tools such as tracking of logins, devices and locations, as well as single sign on and Active Directory support, along with phone support.

Features: The main differentiating feature of SpiderOak is the company’s “Zero-Knowledge” policy. This means that all customer data is encrypted and SpiderOak does not have the “keys” to unencrypt it. “This means the server never sees or understands plaintext data - keeping your critical business documents safe and secure always,” the company says on its website.

More information:

Senior Writer Brandon Butler covers cloud computing for Network World and NetworkWorld.com. He can be reached at BButler@nww.com and found on Twitter at @BButlerNWW. Read his Cloud Chronicles here.

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Senior Editor Brandon Butler covers the cloud computing industry for Network World by focusing on the advancements of major players in the industry, tracking end user deployments and keeping tabs on the hottest new startups.